What Would Happen If
by Gwidlet
Summary: This is a look at what might actually happen if someone was sucked into the game. It's not something that happens to the main character accidentally, because Athena is specifically trying to be sucked in. Similarly, it's not just some fan high on the idea of being in the game. It's just... funny to write about stuff like it might actually happen, I suppose. No pairings.


Her hands wrapped tightly around the portable console, though not tightly enough to let the screen warp into an untold number of colours. For a few days, now, Athena had been trying to get this _precisely _right, because the technique to such a thing was never really perfected: she wanted to figure out the way in which someone got inside the system. She didn't think it a very achievable goal, mind you; finding the trigger that led to you being spontaneously enveloped in the world of technology was something very few people had ever even claimed to have done, and it was more of a matter of entertainment for her than any actual real attempt. The console trembled slightly in her hands as it began to process her request. Briefly, she wondered if she should have chosen a better game, a more interesting one, but at least this one didn't usually run the risk of her dying and, she reminded herself, at least those inside it would most likely end up helping her if she did get lost. She wondered if they knew that they were all robots. Not the kind of robots that were in St Mystere, of course, but the kind of robots that were real to her in the outside world, the kind of robots that meant each one of their words were automated and their actions planned. If there was a God for them, it would be her – and the many other players out there, as well, though each of those had their own alternate little universes to set up. But there wasn't really the space or time for her to think these things anymore, because she'd just used it all up, and the screen of the DS had started to ebb with a fluorescent pink glow.

_Fluorescent pink_, she wondered to herself, but the colour choices of a DS system acting of its own accord really shouldn't have mattered to her, so she stared intently at it until it faded to an ordinary sort of pink, then to red, and then finally down into black. Her vision faded with it – slowly, to begin with, but then altogether, as quickly and easily as she might have fallen asleep.

She didn't have much to think about, exactly. The world was black and so was her vision, and that didn't seem all that unusual because black was all she could remember it being. But then that wasn't right and, though she liked to pretend, the fact she was lying down wasn't right, either. A vague recollection of what had happened did exist, in her mind, but she was fairly certain that a malfunctioning children's toy and a coincidental lack of consciousness had been just that: a coincidence. Hesitantly, Athena opened her eyes and was reminded of the fact that there were a multitude of colours other than black in the world, and this stunned her to such a degree that she just lay there for a moment, against the ground she now realised was hard and cobblestoned, staring hard into space as she considered the ever-impending question of what colour black actually was, if it was just any of the colours taken to a dark extreme. Upon deciding that this question was unanswerable and that the multitude of people bustling around her in the busy, crowded street probably didn't enjoy having to skirt around the moron girl lying in the middle of the road, Athena stood up; the process was, at first, slow, lest she topple over with some dizziness she was not previously aware of, but it was soon corrected to be at a normal pace, because it turned out she wasn't dizzy, at all. She looked around at the people, waiting for one of them to spring to her rescue and perhaps tell her where she was, given she still hadn't the slightest clue, but they bustled past without so much as looking at her.

Failing the idea of a romanticised hero coming to her rescue, she decided to look around, and search for someone who didn't seem too objectionable to ask where she was or, indeed, where she might be going. She saw the one person she was looking for approaching long before he even saw her, because his top-hat stood out tall in the throng of the crowd, but her hand raised to wave to him and he quickly caught her eye, wondering over with a kind of gentlemanly ease as he slipped between the people in the crowd.

"Good evening, ma'am," he said, though his attention was diverted elsewhere. A little boy about the age of ten years old and dressed entirely in blue was speeding through the crowd in an attempt to reach the elder male, jumping every now and then so as to make sure he wasn't going in the wrong direction. Athena smiled mildly, still not completely sure what this man was doing; most likely, she was at some kind of cosplay convention with the theme of old England, though how she'd ended up here was altogether confusing.

"Hey, sorry to bother you – could you tell me where I am, please? I need to head back home, if you could point me to the nearest bus stop that'd be great. I'm not really sure how I got here, must have gotten lost and forgotten where I was." She rubbed her hands together nervously and waved to the little boy, as well, who promptly thrust his fist up in the middle of the crowd so it just reached shoulder height of most adults and waved just as eagerly back. The man, supposedly Professor Layton, fumbled with the rim of his hat, trying to tip it despite the fact it looked all too ready to fall off.

"My apologies, miss – err…"

"Athena," she provided.

"My apologies, miss Athena. I don't think there are many buses this side of London that go outside the city, but I'd be very happy to help you find some accommodation elsewhere for the night. Why, I think my landlady is renting out a room in the flat above mine, but she'd be more than happy to let you stay there for the night if you've really no other way home."

Athena looked at him questioningly, almost hardly daring to believe that his man actually wanted her to go with him. He was, after all, a total stranger, and the fact he was dressing up as a gentleman and was in character didn't stop the fact she barely knew him. By this time, "Luke" had caught up, and was watching the conversation with a kind of mild curiosity as he rubbed at an itchy spot on his nose. Having failed to find anything appropriately polite to return to him, Athena opened her mouth and said the only thing that did come to mind:  
"I have pepper spray and I will use it."

At this point, however, little Luke Triton cut in.

"Listen, miss, you really are in London! I know you fell asleep here and we're just trying to help, we don't want to see you out on the streets again."

Athena looked around. No stalls selling signed copies of pictures of characters, no other random anime characters bustling along, no giant exit signs around every corner. Huh. Maybe it was real, after all. She promptly saw fluorescent pink, which then faded to red, and then to blank, and then she didn't see anything, at all.

**A/N : **This is a look at what might actually happen if someone was sucked into the game. It's not going to have Layton fall in love with the main character – or, at least, I sincerely hope not – and it will have its own backbone and story to itself other than "OH HEY RANDOM OC". So yeah, the plot and mystery elements will hopefully be there. Sorry for the ending of this chapter, it seems very wimpy of her – but then, I got bored of writing this sort of thing.


End file.
